


Silver Light and Shadow

by Starlingthefool



Category: Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Genre: AU, M/M, Summer Camp AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-23
Updated: 2010-08-23
Packaged: 2017-10-11 05:44:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starlingthefool/pseuds/Starlingthefool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mud fights, minor injuries, capture the flag games, skinny-dipping in the moonlight, bland meals, stealing the truck and joyriding in the hilly roads, campers whining about the bugs, sudden thunder storms, pointing out constellations and animal tracks to bored adolescents: Holmes and Watson are camp counselors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silver Light and Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: mentions underage kids fooling around.

**Day 1**

It had been five years, and everything looked the same. The cement mess hall, the log cabins, the rough plank lavatories, none of it had changed. Holmes had a feeling that it never would, at least until entropic forces collapsed all the buildings, or England sunk into the sea all together. There was something very timeless and ubiquitous about summer camps.

And then Holmes saw John Watson – who he remembered as a weedy fourteen year old, too long limbs and patchy facial hair – and okay, there was something different. Five years could bring a lot of change; puberty, for example, and muscle mass. The boy had become a man; tan-skinned, lithe, muscular. Holmes was surprised. John Watson had looked like he was going to grow up to be skinny, beaky, and nerdy – all of which described Holmes perfectly.

Holmes hated being surprised. “Oi! Spanky!” he called out. It wasn’t the worst nickname he’d heard at camp, but it was embarrassing enough.

John’s head whipped around at the old nickname. Then he grinned. “Oi yourself, Shrinky.”

Holmes supposed it was too much to ask that John would have forgotten his own (terrible) camp nickname.

John walked over, his gait studiously nonchalant, sizing up Holmes as he went. Holmes leaned against the tree he’d been standing next to. “You call me that in front of the campers,” he warned, “and I’ll get even.”

John laughed; it was the same laugh, even if the voice was lower, deeper. “You call me Spanky again, and they’ll never find your body.” Then he held out his hand to shake.

Casual, friendly threats delivered while observing social mores; apparently, John hadn’t changed that much. Maybe this summer wouldn’t be an utter waste. Holmes took his hand and returned the grin. “Nice to see you. What cabin are you in?”

“Red Wolf. You?”

“Same. You know, I didn’t think you’d ever come back. Considering–”

“How hellish I thought this place was? Yeah, but I needed the money.”

“You? I thought your family–”

“Do you want help carrying your trunk to the cabin?” Holmes asked.

John’s brow creased at the awkward subject change. He gave Holmes a look; not like the intrusive looks Holmes gave people, dissecting and diagnosing, just a look. Holmes wasn’t sure what he saw, but John nodded and Holmes relaxed a little. “Sure. I’ll help you carry yours after.”

Holmes pushed himself off the tree and said, “I’m pretty sure I know where the keys to the truck are kept.”

John snorted. “Why aren’t I surprised?” he says, his tone disapproving. But he was still grinning, and he didn’t turn down the ride.

**Day 5**

“It’s interesting,” John said at breakfast, a few days later.

“What is?” Holmes asked, stirring more brown sugar into his oatmeal.

“These kids,” John said, digging into his eggs with enthusiasm. “It’s like seeing ourselves five years ago, some of them.”

“I was never as stupid as some of these tits.”

“Obviously not, you’re a bloody irritating genius,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. It was another habit John hadn’t grown out of, that tidiness. (Not that Holmes was keeping track of them or anything.) “Just the, the awkwardness. And that tough attitude.”

“It’s annoying, is what it is,” Holmes said. “They all act like you can’t teach them anything, like this isn’t nearly as interesting as staying at home and playing Wii.”

“Oh, that doesn’t remind me of anyone at all.”

“Oh, piss off, Spanky.” Holmes glared and took a bite of oatmeal. “Ugh. This tastes terrible.”

“That’s what happens when you add half the sugar bowl to it. Shrinky.”

John’s smug expression was disturbingly attractive. Holmes pushed away the oatmeal and drank his tea.

**Day 9**

“Mail call!” one of the other counselors called at lunch. Smith wandered between the tables, calling names, as Holmes attempted to choke down some of the food. It was worse than the cafeteria at Queen’s. It was worse than his own cooking, which really said something.

“Eff this,” he said, pushing away the plate. “Tonight we’re stealing the truck and getting take out.”

John looked up from poking his potatoes. “All right,” he said to Holmes’ surprise.

“That’s it? You're not going to try to talk me out of it?”

“This food is crap, and I’m dying for a kebab. And a pint besides.”

Holmes blinked. “You’re not worried we’re going to get caught?”

“I’m sure you’ve got some brilliant plan.”

Holmes hadn’t, not until John spoke; his words were like a catalyst, setting off a chain reaction in Holmes’ brain. When the metaphorical smoke cleared, yes, there was a plan. And if it wasn’t exactly brilliant, it was at least clever enough.

“In fact, I–”

“Holmes!” Smith called, holding up a letter. Business envelope, return address printed on a smart label, his father’s block handwriting on the front. Holmes said nothing.

“Holmes!” Smith called again. Holmes was aware that John was giving him another one of those looks, the concern tinged with curiosity.

“Holmes, Sher–”

“HERE!” Holmes shouted. Smith sauntered over, holding out the envelope, and Holmes snatched it out of his hand. He waited, tensely, until Smith wandered off again, before laying it on the table. He could feel his father’s long-distance disappointment leaking from the letter like radiation.

He was aware that John was looking at it, and at him, and waited for the inevitable question: was Holmes going to open it? If not, why not?

“So,” John said. Holmes cringed. “What’s the plan for tonight?”

“...What?”

“Tonight?  Great escape? Take out and beer?”

Holmes swallowed, feeling uncomfortably grateful, and looked away from the letter. “Right. The plan.”

As he started outlining his plan for stealing the truck for a few hours, Holmes realized that John hadn’t yet received a single letter from home.

**Day 14**

“Bloody rain,” John said, stomping into the cabin. “I hate rain. This is supposed to be summer.”

Holmes looked up from his book. John was stripping off his soaked sweatshirt and hanging it up on one of the hooks. Holmes looked back down quickly before John got any more naked. “It may be summer, but this is England. How was canoeing?”

“We were halfway across the lake before it started pelting down us. They were whinging the whole way back. And then Muggins managed to capsize his canoe.”

Holmes’ eyes drifted over the top of the page. John was down to his swim trunks, which were wet and clinging to his backside. He forced his eyes back down on the page. “You had to go in after them?”

“Of course. I think he did it on purpose.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Holmes saw John peel off his swim trunks. He caught a flash of pale skin, and again, had to force his eyes back to the sentence he’d been rereading since John walked in.

“Twat,” John said, slipping into his boxers.

“Huh?” Holmes said.

John looked over at him. “Muggins. He’s a right twat. Are you all right?”

“Fine,” Holmes said, snapping the book shut and sitting up. “Think I might head over to the canteen.”

A clap of thunder shook the walls of the cabin.

When it ended, John asked. “Now?”

Holmes shut his eyes. “Never mind.”

John looked at him, vaguely concerned, then turned to his trunk. He pulled another t-shirt out and slipped it over his head. “Do you want a cigarette?” he asked.

Holmes opened his eyes. “God, yes.”

Watson pulled out a pack of Dunhills (bought on their illicit night on the town, last week), lit two, and then passed one over to Holmes. John sat on his bunk, long legs still bare, the skin on his thighs pale in the gray light. They smoked in silence for a while, Holmes sneaking looks at John. There was a nervous energy in the room now, tension. The rain pounded relentlessly on the metal roof. Holmes waited, dread weighing in the pit of his stomach, for John to say something.

The Dunhill was half-smoked when John whispered, “Holmes.”

Holmes turned his head, facing him. He could feel his heart beating in the hollow of his chest. He looked carefully, and saw a matching pulse thudding in John’s throat. Oh crap. They were going to have some kind of Talk. John was going to go ahead and bring up one of the topics they had been carefully avoiding for the last two weeks; the silence from John’s family, the angry letters from Holmes’, what had happened in the past five years to each of them. It was easy, at the camp, to forget that the outside world existed. It was one of the few good things about being here.

John fiddled with his cigarette. “Look, what happened... you know, when we were fourteen, that night in the boathouse–”

Oh fuck. Oh fucking _fuck_, it was going to be that conversation, the one that should never be spoken of ever, but of course John would speak of it...

“–I mean, kids do that all the time. It doesn’t, like–” John was blushing and stuttering, and fuck, Holmes was going to explode from the tension in the air if he didn’t do something.

“Fuckin’ HELL,” Holmes nearly screamed. “Look, I’m sorry if you’re uncomfortable because you’re rooming with a queer who convinced you to fool around with him when we were both stupid angsting adolescents but I understand that you’re straight now and that’s all well and good, great, whatever, it’s not like I can’t keep it in my pants.”

“Uh–”

“UNLIKE you, which is how you got the nickname Spanky in the first place, if you remember, by wanking in a room full of other boys, but that’s besides the point.”

“You–”

“THE POINT IS, you’re cute and all but I know when someone’s not interested, and I respect that you’re straight and probably have seventeen different girlfriends across the entire country, and I wouldn’t hit on you unless you gave me an engraved invitation. So don’t worry about it, your heterosexuality is safe from me and my queer wiles or whatever, and now this stupid conversation is done with and we can just get on with our lives.”

Holmes threw himself back on the bed, viciously smoking his cigarette. He could hear John blinking, breathing, shifting on the bed as he tried sort through what had just happened. Holmes picked up his book and pretended to read some more.

“What if I did?” John asked.

“Did. What,” Holmes ground out.

“Engrave you an invitation?”

Holmes didn’t answer, but his fingers tightened their grip on the book enough to tear the page. “Sod off,” he muttered.

After a while, John stood up, pulled on a pair of shorts and his slicker, and went out.

Holmes dropped the book on his bed and rubbed his eyes. “Fuck,” he said. Whoever said that the best defense was a good offense was obviously a tit.  
**  
Day 15**

See, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this. All Holmes had wanted out of this summer job was a place to live that wasn’t his father’s house, and a chance to save some money. He’d assumed he’d be rooming with some thickheaded twat who would agree to live in mutual dislike and leave him alone. And at the end of the summer, he’d leave with a full wallet and the satisfaction of knowing he’d never have to spend a day outside again.

He hadn’t planned on having John Bloody Watson swan back into his life, five years older, stupidly good looking, and annoyingly fun to be around. It had been just like this the last time as well. Holmes had planned on having as terrible a time as possible, so as to take full advantage of his parents’ guilt over having to send him to camp in the first place. (Incipient divorces made it pretty easy anyway.)

But no, then John Watson – who’d still been all awkward angles and too-large feet and sandy-brown hair hanging in his eyes – had latched onto him, and Holmes, to his surprise, had latched ahold of John as well. They just worked together; John never tried to call Holmes by his first name (though never hesitated to use his hideous nickname, but that seemed more fair somehow), was always good for sneaking out after lights out, and either ignored Holmes’ insulting remarks or responded with a few barbs of his own.

By the end of the six weeks together, they’d practically been living in each others’ pockets; all their belongings were jumbled up, with Holmes’ books under John’s pillow, and half of John’s t-shirts in Holmes’ trunk.  
And then there’d been the night in the boathouse.

The stupid thing was, John had been right; it was something that most kids did, they certainly hadn’t been the first (nor the last, Holmes had noticed on his turns to do night rounds). They’d just treated it like another one of their adventures, only naked and rather sweatier than usual. It had been good at the time – brilliant actually – and maybe the memory of it had helped Holmes understand that he was... But in the larger scheme of things, it didn’t necessarily mean... And John had probably just been trying to air out the past and find out.... what?

It hardly mattered. Holmes had made the stupid blunder of just announcing he was a fag, when he should have just let John finish stuttering out whatever he’d been trying to say. Maybe John wouldn’t be avoiding him now, and Holmes wouldn’t be obsessively mulling over the last part of their exchange, John’s talk of invitations, which he still couldn’t understand.

“Holmes?” Clark said.

Holmes grunted, not looking down at the camper.

“You’re on lifeguard duty, right?”

Another grunt.

“Uh, I think Wiggins is trying to drown Norbert. “

Holmes looked, saw the splashing, and swore. “Bloody, buggering _fuck_–”

 

Holmes was relieved that the cabin was empty when he came back from swimming. He tossed his t-shirt into his hamper and grabbed his towel. He was about to hit the showers when he saw something on his bed. A note.

_Have taken the cigarettes hostage. If you want them, meet me at the boathouse at sundown. Bring the rest of the beer.  
JW_

Holmes flipped the card over. In smaller writing, near the bottom was this:

_I’m crap at engraving, but if you’re still waiting for that invitation, this is it._

It was about ten minutes before Holmes could think more than: _Oh. **Oh**. _ 

**Day 16 (technically)**

Holmes’ watch put the time at just past one in the morning. The moon had risen high enough to shine through the windows of the boat house. It was falling onto Watson’s naked skin in a disturbingly romantic way, silver light and dramatic shadows, illuminating the curls of cigarette smoke drifting upward from his hand.

“This is so weird. “

“It’s not that weird,” John said, poking Holmes’ rib. “It’s practically a camp tradition.”

“We’re not campers anymore.”

John lifted his head. “You have noticed that about half the counselors are fooling around, haven’t you?”

Holmes looked at him sharply. “Of course I have.” He hadn’t though; he’d been too focused on his own problems. He’d certainly be noticing it from now on.

“Sure,” John said fondly, obviously not believing him. Holmes reached over and plucked the cigarette out of his hand, putting his other hand on John’s chest. He leaned against John’s legs, considering the flesh under his hand, learning its texture and shape. He blew a stream of smoke across it, just to see what it would look like, and John shivered.

“Why do you think it’s weird?” John asked.

“Because– because we’re two young men discovering the wonders of homosexuality in a bloody boathouse, it’s straight out of E.M. Forester.”

“Wait, ‘discovering’? You mean you haven’t–”

“Don’t be thick, _Spanky_.”

John grabbed Holmes’ hand and pulled him down. “Oi, I’ll show you something thick–” he said, in a passable impression of Lestrade’s pugnacious East-Ender accent.  Holmes was laughing as he kissed him, and then gasping as John did something with his hips, a movement that caused a heated pressure at the base of Holmes’ spine. He was getting hard again, for god’s sake, he felt like such a bloody teenager, which technically he still was, but only for another few weeks, oh fuck that felt good.

“I don’t know why you bothered to put these back on,” John said, sliding his hands beneath the waistband of Holmes’ pants. His hands were cold, and maybe that was why Holmes shivered as they slid over the curve of his ass, pulling him closer to the welcoming heat of John’s body. The pressure and weight of a naked body beneath him, of a hard cock sliding next to his own; Holmes moaned into John’s neck, overwhelmed by sensations, pleasure and pressure and the subtle, shivering pain of John’s teeth tugging at his ear.

“I know why this is weird,” John said, whispering, as he snuck a hand in between them, grasping Holmes’ cock.

“Ngh,” Holmes replied. Thinking in words was becoming difficult.

“It’s because it’s completely new and completely familiar at the same time. I remember doing this before,” he said, squeezing Holmes’ cock to emphasize the point. “And it’s different, but...

Holmes opened his eyes, looking at the body below him, remembering the body as it was five years ago; shorter, skinnier, bonier. The expression in John’s face though, the wanting, bewildered lust: that was the same.

**Day 16 (officially)**

Holmes had been in his own bed for only three hours before reveille went off, the tinny recorded bugling shocking him awake. On the other side of the cabin, John groaned and burrowed underneath his pillow.

Holmes, used to functioning on only a few hours of sleep from uni, rolled out of his bed and stumbled out to the lavs to piss and brush his teeth. When he returned, feet wet and cold from the dew, John was sitting up in bed, one hand rubbing at his face. He peered up at Holmes, who was feeling nervous and jittery.

“You look gorgeous,” John slurred, then yawned and slumped back on his bed. “You should kiss me.”

Holmes snorted, but still complied.

**Days 17-69**

The summer days and nights blurred together; mud fights, minor injuries, capture the flag games, skinny-dipping in the moonlight, bland meals, stealing the truck and joyriding in the hilly roads, campers whining about the bugs, sudden thunder storms, pointing out constellations and animal tracks to bored adolescents, endless cups of too-sweet tea and fruit juice, swarms of gnats, pranks on the other counsellors, more letters from his father, rounds of card games that went late into the night.

A few nights stood out, distinct from the others. One in particular, near the end of the summer.

It was close to the full moon, only a couple days before. They were alone in their cabin, sharing a warm beer and playing cards.  John had just finished telling Holmes about how he planned to enlist when he got back to Newcastle.

“Why the hell do you want to go into the army?” Holmes asked. “The army seems like it’d just be camp all over again, only with more shouting and less swimming. And people would be shooting at you. Balls to that.”

“How else am I going to pay for med school?” John said. “It’s not my first choice, but–”

“How are you going to get to med school if your face gets blown off in Afghanistan?”

John looked stricken. The actual meaning of Holmes’ words hit home; for one horrible instant, he could see John in fatigues, covered in blood and dirt, dying on some godforsaken road in a country most people still couldn’t find on a map.

“Not that you would,” Holmes said, trying to banish the vision. “You’re too smart for that.”

“Holmes–”

“And I guess if you’re a medic or a doctor or whatever then you wouldn’t be in active combat zones,” Holmes babbled, hating the inanity of the words, and knowing they were completely untrue, but not quite able to stop them from falling out of his mouth.

“Holmes, it’s–”

“Still it’d be better if you’d just mmph–”

John had just grabbed his face and kissed him. Holmes dropped the cards he was holding, and pulled at John’s hips until he was straddling Holmes’ legs.

“Hey,” John said, breaking the kiss. “Will you write to me?”

“What?”

“Write to me. After this. I mean, I won’t be getting any mail after I enlist, not from my family anyway.”

Holmes looked closely at John’s face; he was blushing, cheeks ruddy like he’d been running. He was embarrassed, nervous – his pulse pushing at the thin skin on his throat – and more than that, he was scared.

Holmes had no real defense against that, against someone’s openness and vulnerability. So he nodded. “Of course.”

He meant it. He would write. He’d email him every damn day, even if exams were killing him and he felt like he was collapsing under the weight of his own overactive mind.

But there was always a cold, quiet, logical voice in the back of his mind; it spoke then, after he’d made the promise and John had resumed kissing him. It said, in a doubtful tone, _Will you really? After all, you didn’t last time._

**Day 70**

John looked back, his hand on the door handle of his father’s old Toyota. John smiled, waved when he saw Holmes standing back among the trees, watching him go like the sop he was.

Holmes put his hand up, and John grinned at him, a flash of teeth. It was another one of those vertiginous moments where the past and the present lay over each other; fourteen year-old boy, twenty year-old man, both of them waving goodbye to him.

The horn beeped, startling them both. John got in the car, and the engine roared as it started moving.

Holmes put his hands in his pockets, fingering the slip of paper with John’s email on it.

**Epilogue**

Holmes hasn’t left the lab in six hours. He hasn’t slept in thirty. But the next draft of his dissertation is due in two days, so it’s hard to be concerned about petty things like that.

Still, he welcomes the distraction when he hears the door open. He’ll at least have someone to boast to about his current result, even if it is just – he paused, listening to the footsteps – Stamford and some bloke he doesn’t know.

“I’ve done it,” he shouts, then clears his throat. His voice is hoarse; all those fumes, and not talking to another living being. “I’ve isolated the reaction and can work out how to synthesize a catalyst from the... oh shit_._” His volume falls on the last words, and he hopes the surprise on his face isn’t too obvious. He hates being caught off guard.

John Bloody Watson is standing next to Stamford, back from the metaphorical grave of Holmes’ past. He is far too skinny, skin too tan and stretched against the bones of his face; there are small scars on his face and hands; his posture is too tense to be comfortable, and he’s standing with the help of a cane. He’s been through a war. Two, maybe. It’s hard to believe that he’s twenty-seven, the same as Holmes, and not older. All the soft edges of the twenty-year old Holmes knew have been burned away.

“Holmes, this is an old friend of mine. John Watson, Sherlock –”

“Holmes,” John says. “We’ve met, actually. Long time ago.” There’s the edge of a smile on his mouth; Holmes can see the word John’s thinking, as if he’d written it in the air in front of him: _Shrinky_. The bastard. Sherlock's missed him.

“Have you?” Stamford says. “Great. Holmes, Watson’s just back in London–”

“From Afghanistan?” Holmes asks. John nods. At least two tours, Holmes decides. “Wounded in action?” Holmes says, phrasing it as a question even though he knows, and John nods again. He feels an odd need to apologize, but for what? Not keeping up a correspondence? Not knowing, for the last five years, if John’s been alive or dead?

“And he’s looking for a place to live,” Stamford says, with all the subtlety of a piano falling down a flight of stairs. John looks mildly chagrinned, and smiles apologetically at Holmes. He opens his mouth, about to make some excuse to the two of them and then leave. Holmes almost lets it happen, but then:

“I’ve got a place on Baker Street. Nice flat, good location. Two bedrooms,” he adds, not too tactlessly, he hopes. He just doesn’t want John to think that he expects... well, anything. “Can’t swing the rent myself.”

John looks at him, sizes him up “Yeah?”

“I’ll be out on my ass next month if I don’t find a flatmate.” He’s exaggerating, but Holmes realizes that he mustn’t, absolutely can’t make this seem like he’s doing John a favor, otherwise he’d never agree. This is easy, because he’s not really; Holmes knows what a pain in the arse he can be to live with. He just has a completely illogical feeling that if he lets John go again, he’ll actually regret it. He’s had a few friends since that summer, a few lovers, one or two people who managed to be both at the same time. But there’s been nobody that would play strip gin-rummy in the middle of the night, or steal a truck with him just because they both had a terrible craving for kebabs.

Holmes knows that he’s being unforgivably sentimental, and that this might return to bite him in the ass, but it’s a calculated risk.

“Why don’t I just show you the place now?” he says, yanking off his gloves. “I need a break anyway.” It’s an utter lie, but Holmes has had practice with lying, and he’s rather good at it now.

John looks tired, and a little suspicious, but also like he’s got nowhere else to go. He shrugs, and says, “I’ll wait for you outside.”

Holmes gathers up his things, and then follows John back out into the brightness of the day.


End file.
